


The One Who Stayed

by Archangel67



Series: Destiel Week 12 [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel67/pseuds/Archangel67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Dean Winchester, friendship is a novel concept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Who Stayed

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Destiel Week 12 / Day 2 / Challenge word: Propinquity

It had just been a matter of time, really.

Nobody else had ever bothered to stick around this long and he had a soft spot for people who actually gave a damn. Not that he’d ever say _that_ out loud. The number of people he had met who really, truly cared about him? He could count them on one hand. Most people would put on a front, ask you if you were alright, but they didn’t actually want to know. It was kind of like asking a bartender how their day was.

Everyone wanted to be heard but nobody wanted to listen.

Couldn’t really say what he had expected to come of their friendship. It was tenuous at first. Hell, the guy had walked in like he owned the damn place and he’d have sworn that he was a demon. Except… he lacked the put together swagger that most hell spawn prided themselves on. His suit was wrinkled, his coat was dirty, and judging by his hair it looked like he’d been caught in a hurricane. Demons were well manicured. At least most of the ones who clawed their way to the surface were.

But Cas? Cas was a mess.

Nobody could say that Dean Winchester wasn’t an expert on keeping people at arm’s length. He tried, damn it. Really he did, but it was impossible to ignore that weird white-noise buzz that hummed through his bone marrow when Castiel came around. It set his jaw on edge. He didn’t even believe in angels and suddenly there was one who was way too interested in his personal business.

It was fucking disconcerting.

Raised him from perdition. What the hell did that even mean? He had been dead meat. Shredded five ways from Sunday by hell hounds. Cas hadn’t just snatched his soul back from Hell and shoved it back into that broken corpse. It wasn’t that simple. The angel had pieced him back together. He had been worm food. There had been a couple of times that he tried to ask just what “being raised from perdition” entailed but the blue eyed idiot had always brushed off the question like he was a five year old asking where babies came from.

“Have faith,” Cas would say and disappear for the bazillionth time, throwing their carefully organized hunting research all over the motel room. Faith was well and good but it didn’t answer his goddamn question. Sam would sigh and pick up the papers while he ranted about how much the angel pissed him off. Sometimes Sam would suggest, politely, that he just stop asking.

But then Cas stopped being just a frustrating shadow. He became an ally. A _friend_. More than that, even. Despite the fact that he was still flitting in and out like Scotty was out there somewhere beaming him up to Neverland, he had become a dependable part of his life. Dean… didn’t have a lot of friends. Not real ones. Not ones that stayed around or that he could really let in. People gave him shit about how close he was with Sammy, but if your brother was the only person you could rely on, he’d be _your_ best friend too.

He felt like he should have been more surprised that he had managed to befriend a man – no, a creature – who was older than the Earth itself. Someone who didn’t eat or sleep or understand most of his lame jokes. He should have been scared by the way that Cas stared at him like he was trying to pick him apart, but there was something surreal in how comforting it actually was. Sure, he complained. Told the angel to back off. But he liked it. It made him feel important.

Even Sam had never made him feel like that. He was his brother’s keeper, but Sammy just went about his life and let him trail behind like a kicked puppy. He would always be there for the kid and knew that Sam would be there for him too, but it was a given. The attention that Cas gave him wasn’t. It was novel. Made him feel sorta… _ugh_ … warm and fuzzy.

Was this what it felt like?

Having a friend?


End file.
